Court testifies NAB witnesses in Nawaz’s cases

ISLAMABAD: The accountability court hearing NAB references against Sharif family recorded statements of prosecution witnesses on Tuesday.

The court heard the corruption cases filed against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his close relatives by the National Accountabil-ity Bureau (NAB).

Accountability Judge Mohammad Bashir heard the case. Nawaz Sharif was represented by his lawyer Advocate Khawaja Harris, while his children were represented by Advocate by Amjad Pervez Bhatti.

Malik Tayyab, a prosecution witness associated with Standard Chartered Bank, recorded his statement in the Flagship Investments and Azizia Steel Mills references.

The witness has provided details of cheques issued to Maryam and others from the former premier’s bank acco-unt.

Tayyab told the court that on 13 June 2015, a cheque worth Rs12 million was issued to Maryam. Another cheque worth Rs28.8m was issued to her later that year, on 15 November.

The court also recorded statements of NAB Lahore police officials Umer Daraz and Mukhtar, who were among those who delivered the NAB summons to Nawaz Sharif and his family members at Jati Umrah.

Another witness, Mukh-tiar, recorded his statement pertaining to the Avenfield fl-ats reference, and another wi-tness, Adeel Akhtar, was su-mmoned to record his statement in the same reference.

The witnesses told the court that the summons had been delivered to Shamim House, Jati Umrah, and were received by security officers Ataullah and Malik Arif.

The court summoned another prosecution witnesses, Foreign Office employee Afaq Ahmed, to record his statement in the next hearing of Flagship Investments reference. The Avenfield and Flag-ship Investments references’ hearings were adjourned until Monday, Dec 11.

The former premier’s son-in-law Capt (Retd) Safdar filed application seeking exemption from appearing before the court for 15 days. In his absence, Safdar will be represented by Advocate Faisal Irfan. It is to be mentioned here that Nawaz and his daughter departed for London from Lahore airport on Tuesday morning after the former was granted a week-long exemption from appearing in court from Dec 5 to Dec 11.